This Halloween should have been a celebration. My Little Dragon should have been surrounded by love and showered with gifts. He should have been free to spend his day building the biggest birthday Lego tower known to man, eat all the pasta that he could stomach and force us all to dance to McFly. But that didn't happen and it never will again.
My Little Dragon was autistic, he lit up my day with his smile alone and he was taken from my life cruelly, unjustly and without warning. He died. He was gone. And I was left without my ray of sunshine, My Little Italian Dragon. Life's harshest lesson was thrust upon me and I was not ready for it.
In less than two weeks nearly three years will have gone by. Since I said good bye. Since I last saw him. Since he last knotted my hair and said "I miss you, JoJo."
Accepting his death was a challenge I was not ready for. Are any of us ever ready to say good bye to a child we've known and cared for?
Although time has turned my grief for this wonderful boy into happy memories, there are times when I am so reminded of what I have lost that I'm left in a ball of pain. A pain nearly as violent as that first moment I heard the words "I'm so sorry, he is gone".
Tears do not come one at a time or gently. They come by the thousands and each one is desperate to be the first to escape my eyes. My tears and soul pour out as if in unison. My face swells, my head pounds and my eyes sting. I have learnt to give into the emotion. It takes over me and it is all I feel. It consumes me for that moment in time and there is nothing else. Nothing but loss. Nothing but pain. Nothing but sorrow. I do not let it niggle at the back my head or more importantly, my heart. I embrace the feeling and once I am ready to move on, I can, because I have let myself be taken over by the emotion I needed to feel.
Last night, when remembering My Little Dragon, I remembered why I wanted to put myself through my teaching degree. I want, no, scrap that, need to become the person he saw in me. I may still be treading the water of my new job with little grace and several mistakes but I know that I will find my feet. I will one day be able to keep my feet so firmly on the ground not even a tornado will be able to move me. If only to make this boys image of me become a reality.
Ey Up, My Little Dragon and once again, Good Bye. I will forever be building my Lego tower. I just hope that one day it'll be tall enough to reach you.
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